MTA Honors Upper West Side Icon Saul Zabar With Poster Inside 79th St. Station

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Friday announced that posters feature a drawing of Saul Zabar, owner of the Upper West Side institution Zabar’s, would be installed inside the 79 Street subway station.

The vinyl posters, which can be found along the platforms of the station, feature the late owner in his white Zabar’s coat.

“This tribute is the MTA’s way of honoring Saul, Zabar’s, and this special family that I’ve known my entire life, at the 79 St station, where thousands of New Yorkers can be reminded every day of his impact,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said at a press conference. “The Upper West Side won’t be the same without Saul, who helped a lot of businesses, not just his own, including the MTA.”

Zabar’s Assistant Vice President and Saul’s Daughter Annie Zabar called the installation an "incredible honor."

"We are so grateful to the MTA and to all the city leaders who helped make this tribute possible," she added.

Zabar died Tuesday in Manhattan after being hospitalized with a brain bleed, according to the New York Times.

For more than seven decades, he helped shape the legendary store that bears his family’s name, known for its smoked fish, fresh bread, cheese and coffee. Founded in 1934 by his parents, Louis and Lillian Zabar, the shop began as a smoked-fish counter inside a Broadway supermarket.

Though he once planned to become a doctor, Zabar left college after his father’s death in 1950 to help run the business — a decision that defined his life and New York’s food culture.

“He would visit warehouses in Brooklyn, look at each fish, and taste them to pick out what he wanted,” his daughter Ann told Patch ahead of his 97th birthday. “Any car trip in the station wagon smelled like the smokehouse — it’s a smell that’s like perfume to me.”

Born June 4, 1928, in Brooklyn, Zabar attended Stuyvesant High School, Horace Mann, and the University of Kansas. He married Carole Ann Kishner in 1968. She survives him, along with their children Ann, Aaron and Rachel, and four grandchildren. Two of his children continue to work at Zabar’s, according to the Times.